"What is lacking in today's world is a penetrating and comprehensive knowledge of the nature of things; the fundamental truths are always accessible, but they are not obvious for those who refuse to take them into consideration. It goes without saying that it is not a question here of the altogether outward data with which experimental science can provide us, but of realities with which this science does not deal, and cannot deal, and which are transmitted to us by quite different channels, especially those of mythological and metaphysical symbolism, not to mention intellectual intuition, the possibility of which resides principially in every man. The symbolic language of the great traditions of mankind may seem difficult and disconcerting for certain minds, but it is nevertheless intelligible in the light of the orthodox commentaries; symbolism − it must be stressed − is a real and rigorous science, and nothing is more aberrant than to believe that its apparent naivety issues from a crude and "prelogical" mentality. This science, which we may term "sacred," cannot be adapted to the experimental method of the moderns; the domain of revelation, of symbolism, of pure intellection, obviously transcends the physical and psychic planes and is thus situated beyond the domain of methods termed scientific. If we believe that we cannot accept the language of traditional symbolism because it seems to us fantastical and arbitrary, this only shows that we have not yet understood this language and certainly not that we have gone beyond it."
Quote Details
Added by wikiquote-import-bot
Unverified quote
0 likes
Philosophers from SwitzerlandNon-fiction authorsPoets from SwitzerlandPainters from SwitzerlandSufi poets
Original Language: English
Available Languages (1)
Sources
Imported from EN Wikiquote
https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Frithjof_Schuon
Revision History
No revisions have been submitted for this quote.
Categories
Frithjof Schuon
1907 – 1998
Schweizer Religionsphilosoph
179 quotes on TrueQuotesView all quotes by Frithjof Schuon →
Related Quotes
"Original man was not a simian creature barely capable of speaking and standing upright; he was a quasi-immaterial bei…"
"The worldly or imperfect man journeys through life as if on a long road; if he is a believer, he sees God above him i…"
"One must not tire of affirming this: the origin of a creature is not a substance of a material kind, it is a perfect …"
"A classic example of a naive dogma is the Biblical story of creation, followed by that of the first human couple: if …"
"To say that man is "made in the image of God" means that he represents a central and not a peripheral subjectivity, a…"
"It is in man’s theomorphic nature that in his capacity as man and in God’s creative intention, he cannot be something…"
"Man is a divine manifestation, not in his accidentality and his fallen state, but in his theomorphism and his primord…"
"Moral liberty and intellectual objectivity constitute a priori man’s deiformity."
"The human being, by his nature, is condemned to the supernatural."
"Objective intelligence, free will, virtuous soul: these are the three prerogatives that constitute man."